Scottish COVID-19 inquiry|24 Oct 2023
Harrowing testimony from lawyer David Di Paola from CrossReach/Church of Scotland.
NB: Testimony not previously covered in my substack until now. I have added a more detailed analysis here (bottom of page) which also mentions how vulnerable children were denied access to their families infringing on their human rights.
Introduction
David Di Paola is a solicitor representing CrossReach, a social care organisation operated by the Church of Scotland Social Care Council which offers care to people of all ages across a wide range of different needs, with locations all over Scotland. It is one of the largest voluntary sector care providers in Scotland, with services including homelessness, mental health, learning disabilities, criminal justice, substance abuse, residential care for older people, day care and care and education for children and young people.
‘‘Managers were beseiged by complaints from relatives.’’
Testimony highlights
‘‘Those supported in community settings had their normal rotuines and support services suddenly withdrawn…the consequences…was at times CATASTROPHIC.’’
‘‘As one harm was prevented often another was created...potentially greater than the risk of infection for some.’’
‘Those who would ordinarilly have required hospital treatment for the many problems that the frail elderly can face were stuck in care homes…there was a resistance to provide healthcare to these individuals EVEN IN ACUTE situations.’’
‘‘Managers could see SIGNIFICANT DETERIORATION in some residents particulary with dementia.’’
‘‘The Tardiness (quality) of the guidance in care home settings in terms of allowing social interaction caused UNTOLD harm for many residents and their closest families and could be seen as an infringement of their human rights.’’
‘‘Care home residents with COVID were NOT in many cases admitted to hospital.’’
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End
Full statement here
I wrote the following on May 27, 2020:
"Are the Elderly Dying from "Covid" or Neglect?
It's time we discuss the piece of this sordid Covid puzzle regarding the elderly who reside in nursing homes/care centers/LTCF’s- this too like all else Covid is a complete lie. To tell half-truths or to purposefully de-contextualize a situation of this magnitude is to knowingly manipulate the facts- it is to lie.
It’s not quite true to say Covid-19 targeted the old and the sick. Thousands of elderly died because the management of their drawn-out death was withdrawn. Those crimes are being hidden by the trick of “with coronavirus”, or indeed “from coronavirus” – it hardly matters.
Based on watching interviews and reading reports there seems to be a consistent pattern of how the situation with those in care centers has been handled in Madrid, London, Milan, Brussels, Stockholm and NYC.
How it works in the best of times is that when one is placed into an LTCF it does not mean that that person stays in that facility all the time. What it does mean is that that person is most always in a situation where their health has deteriorated significantly, there are complex health problems where constant care is required. So where is that person, in normal times, when they are not directly in that care facility? In the hospital.
Many of these individuals, most of them, shuttle back and forth from care facility to hospital. They go from the care facility to the hospital when they have a dramatic downturn in their health and life-saving medical treatment is required. Once at the hospital they are stabilized in a matter of 3-7 days on average and then sent back to the care center. Most of these individuals yo-yo back and forth between care facility and hospital until they die.
It’s important to understand, that while it varies some from country to country and from care center to care center, on average once one enters a care facility that person will be deceased in 6-12 months. Here is a report from 2010 which speaks to this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945440/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6143238/
Once the patient is stabilized in the hospital they go back to the care center. If they were not to be stabilized the patient would descend very rapidly and be dead within a week, two weeks at most in most cases. Again keep in mind we are talking about individuals who are already in severe health crisis with very complex health issues.
What is happening now with the care center to hospital rotational is very different which has created the conditions for a “bulk” rate of deceased elderly. It has little to do with "Covid" per se and once again points to a social problem not a viral problem.
The changes are such that now we are seeing that once an individual is sent to the hospital for whatever cause they may have (“Covid” or otherwise) and then stabilized they go back to the nursing home as before although many are being dismissed prematurely (due to fear of overcrowding which never happened) and are also being sent back to care facilities that do not have the proper medical capabilities to care for them in their current condition.
But where the dramatic change has occurred is that after being temporarily stabilized (or not) and returned to the care center there will not be a next rotational once the inevitable downward spiral begins again. Combined with this has come an increase in Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) orders.
Once this happens, not being allowed to return to the hospital in the midst of another health downturn for stabilization amounts to essentially a death sentence.
A climate of neglect and fear prevails.
In practice this adds up to institutional euthanasia as public health policy.
Compounding this is the fact that with this climate of fear and hysteria throughout care centers these facilities are finding that workers are withdrawing from care centers, calling in sick, skipping shifts etc.- a perfect storm for an already understaffed and underfunded social service.
And through all of this let’s keep in mind that these nursing home deaths (deaths caused by neglect and abandonment) represent about 50% of the stated “Covid deaths” throughout Europe.
And keep in mind that these inflated numbers of “Covid deaths” of the elderly, whom government officials neglected, are being used to justify draconian measures by those very same governments. It is not possible to be more cynical than this."
The question is, why were these concerns not recognised as adult protection at the time and referred for further inquiry? There are no exclusions to reporting harm under the Adult Support & Protection (Scotland) 2007, which unlike the Adults with Incapacity (Scotland) Act 2000, was not amended or changed by the Coronavirus Act 2020. These harms could have been prevented and I wonder what steps this lawyer took to raise the alarm at the time when he was made aware of these very serious and life threatening concerns? https://open.substack.com/pub/valerienelson/p/people-or-politics-who-are-we-protecting?